


A Kind Word (& a Gun)

by Elske



Category: Project Blue Book (TV)
Genre: Background Sumi, Gay Panic, Gen, M/M, Mob Boss AU, Pre-Slash, first class seat on the bullshit train, poorly researched
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 09:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17978564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elske/pseuds/Elske
Summary: Another day, another dollar. Another envelope of dollars. Another day, but a break in the routine might change everything.(Mob AU, Michael/Allen pre-Slash)





	A Kind Word (& a Gun)

Maybe someday Michael will be given something more “important” to do - or maybe not, and funnily enough, he’s okay with that. They call it a Family Business for a reason, and he was born into the right Family. So never mind that all his dreams had always been of flying, his future had been written for him and set in stone the day the ink was dry on his birth certificate. 

Family Business. At least he never has to get his hands dirty, he thinks, reflexively patting at the inside pocket of his jacket and hearing the crinkle of papers. Other people carry guns, other people come away with blood on their hands -and on their shirts. 

The bell chimes as he opens the door to the neighborhood laundry and steps into the humid air. He clears his throat, leans on the counter, turns a perfected glare at the man behind it.

“Aha! She’ll be right there, Mister Quinn,” he says, and then shouts something else into the back of the store, liquid syllables of a language Michael assumes must be Chinese.

It’s another minute or two before the young woman appears. She looks nervous: but not, he suspects, for the reasons most people tend to look nervous around him. Her lipstick is freshly applied, she’s pinned a flower in her hair, and she smiles shyly as she hands the envelope to him. “Here you are, Mister Quinn.”

“Thanks, doll.” He weighs the envelope in his hand for a moment, adds it to the collection in his pocket. “Have a good week here, all right? And if anyone tries to bother any of you, you call me. That’s what we’re here for.” He reaches out, takes one of her hands in his. Usually the moment calls for a bone crushing handshake, but he’s always more delicate with the women.

The young woman, blushing, attempts a flirtatious smile. Internally, Michael flinches, but he manages to keep a smile on his own face as he lets go of her hand. “Thank you again, Miss Li. I’ll look forward to seeing you next week.” 

He turns away, heads for the door, and breathes a small soft sigh of relief once he’s through. Being flirted with always makes him nervous. It’s bad enough when it’s friends of the family; it’s even worse when it’s one of the people under his family’s protection. Michael’s been warned about people who might try seduction as a matter of influence. And he’s heard stories of people trying to pay their dues with favors instead of cash, which he’s already sworn to himself to refuse. That sort of abuse of power turns his stomach, never mind the fact that even a young woman as soft and lovely as Mr Li’s daughter is not the kind of company he’d want in his bed.

And with that thought, it’s perfect timing as he reaches the last stop on his route: a small, nearly hidden bar called Darling Clover. There’s a little sign at street level with a white clover flower painted on it as the only indication that the place he’s going even exists. He turns into an alley, finds a door decorated with a wreath of clover flowers, and walks through it and into the basement bar.

It’s small and quiet at this time of day - although sometimes there’s music at night, and sometimes Michael comes back to listen to jazz and drink a scotch with the owner of the bar. And while it’s not the kind of place most people he knows feel comfortable in: Michael loves it. The air is full of secrets, there’s an unspoken rule that nothing that happens there is to be spoken of outside the bar.

It’s the sort of place where things that are benign but vaguely illegal are quietly ignored: things like the black bartender who dances every night with his white girlfriend. Or like the handful of beatniks who write poetry and share cigarettes Michael is certain don’t contain tobacco. There is a performer who has a man’s voice and frame underneath the glittery gown he wears when he sings. Nobody bats an eye at the women in suits with their arms flung around the shoulders of their female dates; nobody says a word when a man sits in another man’s lap, kisses his date unflinchingly on the lips.

It’s the kind of place that feels like belonging to Michael, for reasons that he’d rather not think about too closely. He’s smiled too much at other men there, sometimes. All he’s ever let himself do is smile, though, and he’s fairly determined that that’s all he’ll ever let himself do. Going to the bar is Family Business — they collect the money every week, they make sure the police don’t come raid the place. Done and done. Michael can listen to jazz and sip drinks with the beautiful woman who owns the place some nights, but it wouldn’t do to be seen doing more than that. Someday he’ll have to get married, bring a wife and kids into the fold, and it’ll be easier to accomplish that if he never lets himself do anything more than smile at the men he sometimes meets with interest in their eyes.

He shakes his head, as if to clear the thoughts, and perches on one of the bar stools. “Where’s Mimi?” He asks the bartender.

“Out,” he says, with a shrug. “I’ll get the next best thing. Well, the third best thing.” He goes to the open door of the office, leans in, saying “Hey, Doc! Mimi’s friend is here!”

The man who emerges from the office is not what Michael was expecting. He’s not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this: an ordinary man with mussed hair and glasses and his shirtsleeves neatly rolled up half over his forearms. He wasn’t expecting he would go breathless when this man smiled and offered up a plain brown envelope with one hand.

“Mimi told me that someone would be coming for this?” He frowns, looks a bit uncertain. “You’re the right person? You’re not what I expected. I was picturing an enforcer to be sort of...” He gestures with the hand that’s not holding the money, “big, with scarred knuckles and a permanent scowl, not like...a gentleman.”

Michael’s heart skips a beat. “I assure you, I’m Michael Quinn.” He takes the envelope from the other man’s unresisting hand.

“Aha. Of course you are. I’m Allen. Doctor Allen Hynek. Mimi’s husband.”

Michael can’t keep the shocked look off of his face. “Mimi has a husband?”

“It’s...” the other man sighs, softly. “It’s convenient, for both of us. I’m sure you’ve met Susie?”

“Of course.” Susie drinks with him too, sometimes, passes him small glasses of vodka with a foreign phrase as a toast. She’s easily as beautiful as her lover, all beautiful dresses and fingernails painted to match the shade of her lipstick smiles.

“Of course,” Allen echoes. “It’s convenient. Mimi has Susie and this place and nobody looks too closely. I have my research.” He shrugs.

“No Susie of your own, Doc? That’s hard to believe.”

“The Susies of the world aren’t really my type,” says Allen in a small soft voice, and then he gives Michael an appreciative look that leaves him breathless. “But: would you like to have a drink with me, maybe?”

“Absolutely,” he answers, without a moment’s hesitation. The air between them is electric and Michael is suddenly picturing pulling this man down into his lap and kissing him senseless. He wonders if it shows on his face, and then he decides that maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s time to do more than just smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t planning on touching the mob boss AU? I know nothing about the mob. And then I was reading about the history of gay bars because research to procrastinate from actually writing is pretty much who I am as a person? And I learnt that the mafia often controlled gay bars and this idea just happened. If I stopped to research the mob, we wouldn’t be here.
> 
> Mimi’s bar is, of course, named for Susie.
> 
> (I love my pbb discord squad.)


End file.
